Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Monday threatened to reconsider support to the Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan if they failed to withdraw the cases lodged against people who participated in the ‘Bharat Bandh’ organised on April 2 over the alleged dilution of the SC/ST Act.
The BSP is supporting the Congress governments in both the states from the outside.
Mayawati said there was a need to warn the Congress regarding unfulfilled promises on the New Year’s eve as well as in view of the coming Lok Sabha election.
The Congress governments should not back away from the promises the party had made during the assembly election in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, she said in a press statement released here.
Promises alone will not satisfy the people, she said. Alleging that there was a general feeling among people that the Congress and the BJP were two sides of the same coin in terms of making promises, she said it remained to be seen whether the Congress would able to change this perception, she said.
Dalit organisations had called a Bharat Bandh on April 2, demanding implementation of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and reservation in promotion for SC/ST government employees.
After the agitation, cases were registered against innocent people by the then BJP governments in various states, she said, demanding that now that Congress was in power in three of these states, it should immediately revoke the cases.
If the Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan failed to withdraw the cases, the BSP will have to reconsider its support to the governments in both the states, she said.
The BSP won two seats in the 230-seat Madhya Pradesh assembly, in which the Congress emerged the single-largest party with 114 seats, falling two short of the majority mark of 116. The Bharatiya Janata Party was not far behind, with 109 seats. The BSP bagged six seats in the 200-member Rajasthan, where the Congress won 99 seats, missing the majority mark by a single seat. The BSP extended support to the Congress in both states, enabling it to form the government.
Conveying New Year wishes to the people, Mayawati said that voters will not commit the same mistake they had made in 2014 Lok Sabha election by bringing the BJP to power. They should vote for the party that will rid them of the anti-people policies of the NDA government, she said.
By defeating the BJP in three states, the people not only shattered the ego of the BJP leadership but also gave an indication about the formation of a government that will work for the country after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, she claimed.
People will teach the BJP a lesson for failed promises, demonetisation, implementation of the Goods and Services Tax and the National Democratic Alliance government’s communal policies, she alleged.
Hitting out at the Uttar Pradesh government, Mayawati alleged ‘jungle raj’ prevailed in the statement, with the killing of police personnel in Bulandshahr and Ghazipur showed the breakdown of law and order in the state.
She also said the central government should refer the triple talaq bill, 2018 to the Joint Parliamentary Select Committee for discussion, as demanded by the opposition.